Should employers use psychometric tests in recruitment?

Psychometric tests are becoming increasingly common as hiring practices adapt to modern recruitment needs. They’re not just a handy tool for filtering through a pool of candidates – they also provide valuable insight on how a candidate will perform at their job.

As with all other tools, understanding psychometric tests in recruitment is the first step to making the most out of them.

Let’s take a deeper dive into psychometric testing — from what they are and what they can do, to other considerations involved in adding them to your hiring process.

What is psychometric testing in recruitment?

Psychometric tests evaluate a candidate’s aptitude for a particular role through self-report questionnaires or performance ability tests. They measure abilities and personality traits by testing areas like logical skills, numerical data analysis, factual interpretation and problem-solving aptitude.

They can also reveal factors like general characteristics, ability competencies, situational judgement and overall reasoning. All these add important context to how a candidate will perform in their role beyond a resume or a standard interview.

Can psychometric assessments predict job performance accurately?

Psychometric tests assess the responses of participants through qualitative and quantitative data – they provide an objective measure of an individual’s abilities which can predict future performance.

Selecting the right psychometric test is key here, as you’ll want to know whether the person you’re hiring has the skills needed to do the job. For example, someone may score well in a mathematical assessment, but that might not show how they will do in a client facing role that requires managing expectations and troubleshooting skills.

While psychometric assessments are a useful tool for gathering information about a candidate’s performance in the workplace, they shouldn’t be used alone. Instead, paint a bigger picture by combining them with a full recruitment life cycle involving processes like interviewing, work exercises and background checks.

What are the benefits of psychometric tests for employers?

From an employer’s perspective, psychometric assessments help managers flesh out the image of a potential hire in their mind, leading to more informed decision making. It also has a couple of other advantages, such as:

Recruitment process efficiency

Depending on which step of the recruitment process involves psychometric assessment, they can help screen for specific traits and skills. This narrows down the pool of candidates to interview ahead of time.

Psychometric tests are also available both online and offline. Their standardised format makes them easy to assess, tabulate and analyse for reports and internal communication.

Selection objectivity and fairness

Well-researched psychometric assessments add structure to the candidate selection process. A consistent and objective testing system helps with fairness and transparency, while the data derived from the assessments can also become candidate feedback.

In contrast, unstructured interviews are sometimes subjective and inefficient, risking the chance of screening out high performing candidates due to bias and human error.

Psychometric test participants are assessed across a different set of parameters, offering them equal opportunities as they are subject to the same scale.

What are the different types of psychometric tests used in recruitment?

In general, there are three types of psychometric tests.

Ability tests

Also referred to as aptitude tests, ability tests identify cognitive abilities by assessing numerical, critical thinking, verbal and logical skills. The main point of these is to check how an individual performs and learns in a specific setting – hence, they can be general or specific in focus.

Numerical reasoning tests and verbal reasoning tests can assess a candidate’s cognitive ability, while critical thinking tests and logical skills tests measure a candidate’s intelligence levels. Diagrammatic reasoning tests, error checking tests, mechanical reasoning tests and data analysis tests also fall under the umbrella of ability tests.

Personality tests

One of the most common psychometric tests in recruitment, personality tests aim to understand a candidate’s behaviour and predict how they might behave within a work setting. The Big Five personality test, the DISC assessment test and the Myers Briggs personality test are often used in this context.

These questionnaires are often self-paced and self-reported, measuring personal characteristic variables like an individual’s motivations, values, competencies, strengths, weaknesses, communication preferences and leadership potential.

Situational judgement tests

Grouped in with skills tests and job aptitude tests are situational judgement assessments – these test how a candidate responds to hypothetical work situations.

Situational judgement tests can be as simple as testing skills relevant to the role, such as mathematical formula competency or technical knowledge. They can also assess other skills like leadership potential, conflict resolution and emotional intelligence.

Do psychometric tests pose any limitations or challenges?

While psychometric tests offer insight into how a potential employee ticks, they’re only part of the puzzle. Test responses can be skewed if a participant knows how to answer, even when there are tests that are designed to prevent this from happening.

Meanwhile, employers may not be clear on what the tests assess, leading to misinterpretation of results that might affect the hiring decision. Too many unnecessary tests can also be frustrating for candidates to sit through, contributing to a negative candidate experience.

Some tests also need significant time and cost investment, especially if a professional must administer and interpret them. To manage this, focus the use of these tests on relevant roles and skills, or opt for mass assessments that can test more participants at a time.

Psychometric tests focus on specific aspects like cognitive abilities and personality traits. This means that they have limited scope in assessing the full range of a candidate’s abilities. If they are designed based on specific cultural norms and values, they can even put candidates from different cultural backgrounds at a disadvantage.

In a nutshell, psychometric tests function as an additional data point for hiring and should be a complement to other hiring evaluation methods like interviews.

How can psychometric tests complement other assessment methods in recruitment?

Psychometric assessments can add standardisation and objective measurement to the hiring process, reducing possible subjective bias from interviews and resume reviews. They also help predict job performance and identify potential in candidates that might otherwise be overlooked.

They also help save time, cost and energy by quickly assessing many candidates at a time – this grants recruiters more focus on candidates who are a better fit for the role.

Combining psychometric assessments with recruitment assessment methods contributes to a more comprehensive and targeted evaluation of the candidates involved, as the tests can be tailored towards specific requirements to provide data relevant to the role.

What role does technology play in modern psychometric testing?

Technology helps to improve the accuracy, efficiency and accessibility of modern psychometric testing. For example, online testing platforms add flexibility by allowing candidates the option to take assessments remotely. Online psychometric testing can also be more secure as there are restrictions put in place to ensure integrity.

Meanwhile, test data can be collected and analysed quickly and efficiently, even in large amounts. Automated reporting and insight generation helps employers make informed decisions about the hiring process, reducing the amount of resources spent matching candidates and roles.

Well-designed and standardised test rubrics also help with consistency and objectivity in candidate evaluation. Employers can also avoid losing a qualified candidate due to scoring errors by implementing automated test scoring, removing the manual element of processing test results.

In addition, digital psychometric assessments adds accessibility to the mix, creating options for screen reader compatibility, alternative question formats and font size adjustment among others.

What ethical considerations surround the use of psychometric tests?

Employers considering psychometric testing should account for certain ethical considerations, namely:

• Test administration issues such as ethics, confidentiality, cultural fairness and bias
• Test performance factors like situational variables, participant perspective and examiner perspective

In test administration, employers should take care that the selected psychometric test has been thoughtfully designed, administered and interpreted by qualified personnel. This includes things like candidate disclosure and consent, appropriate test completion time and confidential data storage for test results and data analysis.

The tests should be formulated, implemented and standardised to prevent bias on the basis of gender, religion, class, nationality, cultural factors, socio-cultural factors and appearance. They should also be mindful of survey bias, administrative bias, predictive bias as well as scorer and interpreter bias.

How can companies effectively implement psychometric tests in recruitment?

Before taking the leap and adding psychometric testing to your recruitment process, first consider whether the psychometric assessment in question is reliable and valid – they should be supported by statistical and empirical evidence as they are science-based.

Next, determine your preferences in terms of money and time investment. Some tests can be expensive and time consuming, and you might not need to pull out all the stops for testing depending on the size of your business.

You’ll also want to think about user experience from both sides when it comes to picking the right psychometric test. The test should be easy to navigate for hiring managers and candidates to prevent confusion – if the tool adds too much friction to the recruitment process, that will affect efficiency and effectiveness, giving you inaccurate results.

As an organisation, you can set candidates up for success by testing candidates when you are sure that they are suited for the role – this can be done after the first interview round once you’ve had the chance to speak with them.

That way, psychometric testing results can be the icing on top of the cake that provides further insight, and the candidate in turn is more inclined to complete the assessment after a relationship has been established.

The effectiveness of implementing psychometric testing in recruitment hinges on selecting the right tools for your organisation. Shopping around test providers and attempting practice tests before incorporating them into the recruitment process is a great way to find out whether the psychometric test suits your needs.

With all that said, psychometric testing helps employers feel more confident in candidate selection. A comprehensive assessment process that is accurate and well-rounded can do wonders in mitigating the effects of poor hiring. Use psychometric testing alongside other tried and tested recruitment tools like face-to-face interviews to secure your ideal candidate.

Make better hiring decisions with Employment Hero

Spending hours and hours on your hiring process? Let’s fix that.

Employment Hero’s recruitment software covers every step of the recruiting process: from posting job openings to interviewing candidates, all the way to sealing the deal with contracts and digital onboarding.

Track each candidate’s progress with ease through the Employment Hero applicant tracking system (ATS), where you and your team can view everything you need in one centralised and accessible platform.

Your hiring teams can easily store career documents, candidate profiles, notes and psychometric testing results, keeping everyone in the loop, whenever, wherever.

Interested to learn more about what our recruitment software can do for you? Book a demo with one of our business specialists now.